Linda

“I’m an award-winning businesswoman. I’m happily married with two beautiful daughters, and I still fit into the same size ten dress suit I did fifteen years ago. What could possibly threaten me?” – Linda Wilde is an influential marketing manager for the Swan Beauty Corporation cosmetics company. For her two daughters she wants to be the inspiring role model of an independent woman, who manages to combine family life and career successfully. But when Linda decides to make her own story the basis of a new advertising campaign to inspire women over fifty, she is confronted by a set of changed rules. A new generation of women is emerging, one who does not show any solidarity whatsoever. Linda is dethroned by a much younger competitor in her company; and an inexperienced pop singer flirts with her husband, who is going through a midlife crisis. When the 55-year-old finds herself unable to support her daughters in their bid for emancipation, this supposedly perfect reflection of a successful woman starts to show cracks. Now the threat is imminent. Can Linda win this fight? With sensitivity and dark British humour, Penelope Skinner looks at female behavioural patterns today. A cutting-edge play about glamour and power, betrayal and humiliation, beauty and the fear of losing it. With Linda, Skinner made her breakthrough and has been performed on major British stages, including the Royal Court in London.